Best Ukulele Humidifier – 2017 Edition

Once you’ve purchased your ukulele, it’s time to think about the long-term care of it. Treating your ukulele properly will ensure not only that it lasts many years, but that it sounds great for those years as well. One of the biggest factors in keeping it sounding great is managing the humidity where you store your ukulele.

For that reason, we’ll take you through the best ukulele humidifiers. First, let’s talk a little bit about humidity itself.

What is Humidity?

Humidity is the measure of water vapor in the air. While this has many implications you’re already aware of when it comes to how the weather feels to humans, it also affects wood.

When the humidity is high, wood expands. When it’s low, wood shrinks. For most wood applications like tables and buildings, these changes and movements don’t usually have negative consequences.

When it comes to musical instruments though, serious issues can occur. For starters, your ukulele won’t sound as good when it’s not kept at optimal humidity levels. There aren’t many regions where you have to worry about too much humidity, instead the biggest challenge is battling dry conditions without enough humidity in the air.

You won’t have the same full range of sounds if your ukulele is too dry. Over the long run of being stored in low humidity, a ukulele will sustain serious damage. Dried out wood becomes brittle and cracks easily.

Also, the glue can dry out and parts of your ukulele will become loose and separate. Below is a picture of frets starting to lift from the fretboard, which will make your ukulele nearly impossible to play.

Proper Humidity for Ukuleles

One of the most important aspects of safely storing a wooden instrument is the environment’s humidity, and ukuleles are no exception. To avoid damaging the wood on your ukulele, you want to keep the humidity level around 45-55%. For most areas, this means you’ll need to add some humidity. Below are the best ukulele humidifiers to keep your uke in tip-top shape.

Best Ukulele Humidifiers

Oasis OH-18 Ukulele Humidifier

The Oasis OH-18 humidifier is a cheap and easy humidifier solution. The way it works is pretty simple – unscrew the cap, and fill the tube with distilled water. It also comes with a small syringe to allow you to fill the chamber with precision and no spills on your instrument.

Once you have the water in place, the humidifier hangs from your strings down in your ukulele’s sound hole and provides the humidity your instrument needs.

Music Nomad Humilele

Similar to the OH-18, the Humilele is a cheap and easy humidifier that sits in the body of your ukulele, hanging from the strings. The Humilele uses a sponge that you saturate, and then place it into its plastic shell that helps disperse the moisture.

One nice thing about the Humilele is you can easily check if you need to wet the sponge. You can simply flip the cap on the shell and feel if the sponge is soft or hard which will indicate if you need to re-wet it.

TaoTronics Humidifier

If you prefer a solution that gives you more control over your humidity, you might want to invest in a full-blown humidifier. This TaoTronics Humidifier allows you to set the desired humidity level and will keep the room perfect for your ukulele.

This is a great choice if you have multiple instruments that you keep in the same room. If you want to add another ukulele to your collection, check out our best ukuleles for beginners. Since the humidifier has a built-in hygrometer it measure the humidity in the air, you’ll have a better control over the environment than the previous, cheaper humidifier options.

Other Humidity Tips

Be sure you don’t store your ukulele near anything that throws off heat. This includes air vents, radiators, fireplaces, or in direct sunlight. Also, if you are using a room humidifier, you’ll want to keep the door shut so all the humidity doesn’t escape into the rest of your home.

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